Review: "Union Dues" by John Sayles

Sometimes a book’s one good quality makes it immensely readable and worth a recommendation, and that perfectly sums up my feelings on John Sayles’ novel Union Dues, a novel taking place at the tail-end of the sixties, and is sort of a back-handed love letter to that era (to be honest, with Inherent Vice and Already Dead, I’m tired of this type of book). I liked Sayles’ most recent book, the pet-crushing A Moment in the Sun for its sheer audacity that it reveled in every chance it got. But this earlier novel I don’t like as much, despite it having some qualities that are better here than A Moment in the Sun, most importantly its dialogue and cast of characters, which is as rich and rewarding as anything I have read in recent memory. But when it comes to the structure of the novel, the ideas that hold it together, it doesn’t form a cohesive unit. The plot of the novel involves a father and son, Hunter and Hobie McNutt still reeling from the death of the mother. Hobie, in a panic, decides to run away from home and join a disparate group of radicals traveling throughout New England. On his search for his son, Hunter falls in with a number of union laborers just trying to make ends meet. The dialogue here from Sayles, also a successful filmmaker, is impeccable and so entertaining, from the perfectly rendered Boston accent, complete with phonetic spelling of certain words, to the song Hobie hears about Jesus that shows religions connection to the high you get from drugs. There are also a sex scene and a moment involving a stopped up toilet that are the funniest I’ve read in awhile. My main complaint though, is that the cast of supporting characters greatly overshadow Hunter and Hobie, who are simply vessels for the events at best, and get in the way at their worst, making the shock ending kind of a letdown. Still, this book is quite a thrilling near 400-page sit by a true unheralded master of fiction.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "The Residue Years" by Mitchell S. Jackson

It has been awhile since I have written a review that is going to be long, which is disappointing to me by itself, but I am glad to be doing for a book like Mitchell S. Jackson’s debut novel, The Residue Years, easily the best book I have read in one or two months. After reading several books that tried, but never really succeeded in being great, this one soars with precision, originality and tons and tons of heart as it tells its story of two of two broken, wandering souls trying to what’s best for them and their families, but are constantly tempted by escape back to the easy road of selling drugs and abusing them respectively I have read a few books like this in the past. The one that comes to mind immediately is another debut novel that came out recently, Marcus Burke’s Team Seven, which I enjoyed, but didn’t love. I have been ruminating on what separates the two in quality, and it might be just that. Burke’s book is one written by a person with a lot of talent, but I know he has a lot to improve on, with a story that takes itself too lightly and is therefore, not emotionally affective. That is definitely not how I would describe Jackson’s book, which keeps quite a harrowing pace throughout its 350 page length, leaving me both breathless and horrified at the events that take place in these two people’s lives. The two people are a mother and son. Champ, the son, is wise beyond his years, knows big words and what they mean, and would make something of himself if only he could find a better way to make money that doesn’t involve selling crack. The drug also is central to his mom, Grace, who, at the beginning of the novel, is just leaving rehab for drug addiction. The plot is very loose, with short, manageable chapters detailing the lives of these people spent on the brink of despair. We witness Champ’s attempts at school, where a scene involving a presentation on black America and drug use might have been poignant, but coming from Champ, is horribly contradictory and filled with unrighteous anger. We also see his attempts at love with his girlfriend Kim, which is again sabotaged by his massive ego and his ability to be easily led toward temptation. Grace isn’t fairing much better, trying to fill the void in her life that drugs did with menial jobs, church and Narcotics Anonymous, all the while avoiding people, mainly men, who might lead her back to her old life. Jackson is a very original writer, using street slang in a way that isn’t too cumbersome for uninitiated readers and allows for great humorous moments in the lighter scenes, panic in the suspenseful ones and moving during emotional ones. A weird comparison I could make would be to Scottish writer James Kelman’s controversial novel, How Late It Was, How Late, having a similar mood to that novel as well as its themes of trying your hardest yet failing anyway, evidenced by a truly heartbreaking conclusion. Not always the most pleasant book, but one written with an unmatched passion for its subject and sympathy for the pathologically downtrodden.
Rating: 5/5

Review: "Already Dead" by Denis Johnson

If I were to make a list of the writers who I keep reading yet I am not the biggest fan of (which is something I have been kicking around), Denis Johnson would surely be on the top of that list. Already Dead, his biggest novel before he became a big name with the publication of Tree of Smoke, is the fifth book of his I have read, but none of them have been anywhere close to great. I pick out things that I like in them, but it is never a grand event on the whole. He has moments of greatness in his books, some I still remember quite well. He is a great chronicler of a great American waywardness that formed in the last part of the 20^th century. But with that way of thinking comes very disjointed narratives and characters that tend to go off the rails of realism and credibility. Already Dead is very much like that, with a story that involves drugs, murder and maybe even a little demonology. It centers on two very different characters; Nelson Fairchild, a landowner in the Pacific Northwest burden by an awful father, other familial woes, and the strange people he has to deal with owning a lucrative piece of land, especially if you are growing marijuana plants. Into his life walks Carl Van Ness, a drifter intent on killing himself. It seems these two can solve each other’s problems, if only people would stop dying. A great comparison for this book would be one I just read, actually, which was Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. They both have the same feel, which is a little too off-kilter for my tastes, but if you go along with its craziness, you’ll be rewarded with something. This is one of my favorite books of his, almost as much as his underrated first novel, Angels, so it is worth checking out.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Missing Person" by Patrick Modiano

I try not to write reviews for books so soon after reading them, but since I want to get caught up, I will be reviewing a short novel by the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick Modiano. His book, Missing Person is something rather pleasant, but not something that made me jump for joy. The big thing I take away from it is how hard it is for me to think that a writer like Modiano can win what is the greatest prize a writer can receive. That sounds bad, but it isn’t. His style of writing, from the narrative turns, the spare prose and digestible length and syntax are not what I am used to when I approach a book by a Nobel Prize winner. That has changed in the past few years, with authors like Mo Yan and Alice Munro, popular authors, at least in their respective sides of the world, whose stories are interesting, fulfilling both intellectually and emotionally, although I find Mo Yan to be a bit dense, despite liking him a lot. The plot of this book is rather simple, and that is good considering its short length. It concerns a man named Guy, who, for the past ten years, is trying to find out who he was before and during WWII. He finds many clues, people who he was told are dead are actually alive, and he is never sure what to make of anything he is told. It is one of those times in a book where a mystery is so compelling that it doesn’t need an answer, or an answer would simply ruin it, and this book satisfies the reader in that it chooses not to reveal why Guy lost his memory or if he had a memory to lose. In the end, it was an interesting book, posing a lot of old question in a new light, and made me curious to read more from this author, now that he is world-famous.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Natasha" by David Bezmozgis

After my review of Kinder Than Solitude a week ago, I mentioned author David Bezmozgis, and decided to put my money where my mouth was and read is collection of short stories titled Natasha. I was expecting something bad, but what I got was kind of okay if I may say so. It may not come near being great, but I have definitely read worse collections than this. If I can do a little positive/negative comparisons, it is a very short book that you can finish in a day, and if you are interested in different cultures, there is a lot to chew on here. And Bezmozgis is good writer with many unique ideas. But I felt he was trying to control those ideas too much, not letting them guide the story instead, which would lead to a tighter, more focused story, because he doesn’t do that, a lot of these stories felt very derivative. None of them really stand out, there is one called Tapka that opens the collection, that is about the narrators dog that is funny at points but ultimately falls flat, and the title story, about the narrator’s relationship with a cousin-by-marriage that turns sour rather quickly, that came closets to connecting with me. Bezmozgis doesn’t really have a handle on the short story format, or at least one that interests me at all. For example, he has two stories in here about his father, the most interesting character, where he tries to open up a massage parlor and win a weightlifting competition. These scenarios are ripe for interesting narrative turns, even cheap ones, but Bezmozgis seems more interested in tired tropes of old Jewish writers such as Malamud or Roth, who are both favorites, but I’m expecting something different from a new crop of young writers, and this isn’t it.

Rating: 3/5

Review: "Life A User's Manuel" by Georges Perec

I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the ideas the late French author Georges Perec put into what is considered his masterpiece, Life A User’s Manuel. It is for sure not a hard book to get through, like some novels of this ilk, despite some less than stellar aspects, but for sure imagination and accomplishment, I feel this book has to be checked out by anyone who is interested in the limits of fiction writing, because it destroys all of them, which is something Perec was known for. His novel, Avoid/A Void is a full length, 300-page novel where he never once uses the letter “e”. But despite these constraints he put on himself, he never forces them on the audience, generously welcoming them into to view his odd perspective on the world, and when you come out on the other side, you are sure to find a newfound clarity. There is no real plot, despite the books 568-page length. It is structured around a single moment in time, June 23, 1975 at 8:00 PM, and a single apartment building in Paris. Perec takes us on a strange journey into the minutiae of lives lived. It features longs lists of family, histories, paintings, and even trash left in the stairwell, recipes, and other sorts of things we forget about as we live our life. It is sometimes funny, with Perec never above a bad pun or two, and sad, with many of the people living in this apartment building carrying a lot of depressing history with them. It reminded me a lot of the tone Infinite Jest had, were the constant details were simply away to avoid depression. It can be tiring for some, myself included, but reading this, I knew I was taking part in something special from a greatly underappreciated writer.

Rating: 4/5